The swipe effect at Current

I can remember when I first knew I wanted to be involved in advertising and marketing. I loved (and still do) watching commercials on TV (probably one of the very few who do) to see what agencies were doing to get their clients’ message across and stand out amidst the “noise”. It was the same with print; I wasn’t flipping through magazines to read the stories as much as I was trying to see what ads stood out to me—which ones jumped off the pages and into my eyes.
Because I was always so interested in the creativity of advertisements, I thought I wanted to be in an agency’s creative department some day, so those are the classes I took in college. For one of my classes I had to read Jewler and Drewniany’s, Creative Strategy in Advertising. One of the ideas that captured me in this book was the idea of creating a “swap file” – something to collect others’ work that you think is outstanding or different. A swap file isn’t meant to be kept on hand in order to “swipe” ideas, it’s a tool to help generate them.
I am now on the Account Service side of things and never really jumped into the design side. Although I take pride in calling myself an Account Coordinator, I still like to think of myself as part of the creative process. That’s one of the wonderful things about CurrentMarketing: I am on the side of the Agency that fits me best but I still play a role in the creative process, just like every department here at CM. We are all working on the next big idea for our Clients! Every now and then, I take that old swap and look it over or make additions to it that could someday aid in the creative process we all here at CM contribute to.